


Forms of Expression

by intotheruins



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Autistic Sherlock, Autistic Sherlock Holmes, First Kiss, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes Has a Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 00:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12287808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intotheruins/pseuds/intotheruins
Summary: Sherlock had forgotten how to honestly express emotion, but John made him want to try.





	Forms of Expression

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from. It bit me the other night when I was supposed to be working on my book and came spilling out all at once, so. Yes. Here ya go :D. 
> 
> (Haven't found a beta for Sherlock fic yet, so if I made any errors of the American sort, please let me know!)

Sherlock did not know how to express feelings.

Sentiment.

_ Emotion. _

He denied the very existence of such things for so long, refused to believe himself capable. Ignored all the evidence to the contrary. Stupid,  _ stupid. _

As a child, it was simple. He was sad; he cried. He was happy; he laughed. He felt love; he tried to share it—big brother's hand in his, little arms around mummy's neck, father's warm laughter in his curls as Sherlock tucked his head beneath his chin. Even the unusual way his brain functioned was simple. Rock, tap, squeeze to soothe. Chaos to stimulate, but calm required perfect order. Every thought and feeling spilled off his tongue with ease, no matter how strangely the adults around him reacted.

But then he cried at school, and there was laughter. He smiled at the wrong things, loved the wrong ways. Rocking was met with mockery, tapping with annoyance. Too intelligent, too different. Wrong.

By the time he arrived at university, Sherlock was cold, calculating, distant. Numb. He was wrong, and no one accepted him, and so he forgot how to love.

For a time, the drugs seemed to help, but in the end the illusion shattered and he had only the Work. It became everything to him, just as cold and unfeeling as himself.

Then a crack, a rock thrown at the glass casing that he'd always believed to be made of solid stone.

John Watson.

Sherlock was happy, and he laughed, and John Watson laughed with him. John wrinkled his nose at toes in the fridge and yelled at Sherlock for leaving decomposing limbs in the bath. He sighed when Sherlock was in a strop, or sometimes he winced in sympathy. He made tea. He got the shopping. He forced nutrition into Sherlock and stitched up his wounds and took his hand when they ran.

Sherlock loved... but he'd forgotten how. He knew how to insult, how to deduce, how to pry open a person and spill their entirety out onto the cold floor. Manipulation was his only tool for interaction.

So he tried to smile. He put the toes in the vegetable drawer and left the top shelf empty for food. He stole bits of evidence and gave them to John, tokens from their best cases—John always made a fuss about it even as he took whatever little trinket Sherlock had acquired and cupped it in his hands as though it were precious.

Sometimes, he'd look at Sherlock like he was precious, too.

He still loved wrong, but John didn't seem to mind.

Not until the Fall.

It would be incorrect to say that Sherlock truly considered the consequences. He'd learned too well to be selfish in the years he was alone. It was, without a doubt, true that he did it to save his friends (mostly John), but somewhere in the back of his mind, he expected John to know. To understand that he wasn't really dead. The risk of reaching out was too great, and in every moment Sherlock was desperate to send him a message, he assured himself that John knew his methods, he had to know Sherlock was alive. He would wait in Baker Street, welcome Sherlock home after the months of... well, things he already would rather not think about too much.

Only months became years. The thrill of the hunt waned with every new torture, and no matter how much he postured when Mycroft finally came to retrieve him, Sherlock was relieved it was finally over. He could go home.

John wasn't waiting for him. Baker Street was cold, the life gone out of it despite all his things still scattered about the place.

Fine, it was fine. He would surprise John. It would be delightful—the shock on John's face, the realisation that  _ of course  _ his friend was alive, how silly he'd been to think otherwise.

He found him, alone, in a classier restaurant than he would visit by himself. Failed date, then. Excited, feeling playful, Sherlock took on an accent and pretended briefly to be someone else, all the while trying to get John to look at him.

The moment came, and there was shock. Only it came with an anguish Sherlock hadn't been prepared for—he didn't think anyone could feel such things for him. The sharp ice that plunged into his gut at the understanding of exactly what he'd done to John, that John had  _ mourned him... _

When John punched him, Sherlock didn't even bother trying to stop him. Not the first time, or the few times that followed over the next several hours.

Baker Street remained cold. Sherlock worked the case Mycroft had retrieved him for, and tried not to think about how desperately he wanted to turn and find John in his chair, watching him work, or drinking tea, or reading the paper, or pecking away at his laptop.

Even when John eventually did come and help with the case, it wasn't the same. He held Sherlock at a distance, looked surprised every time he turned around and Sherlock was still there. He didn't take Sherlock's hand, even as they ran down a railway towards an abandoned train car.

As Sherlock had suspected, the whole thing had been fashioned into a bomb. He saw an opportunity, then, to manipulate John into forgiving him. It would work—and the sentiment would be completely sincere, even if his methods were not.

He paused, crouched over the bomb and the switch he'd just flicked off, and thought,  _ no _ . Not this time.

As an autistic child, Sherlock had never known a filter. Not until everything he thought and felt had been so thoroughly scorned by the rest of the world. Only then did he learn to suppress everything but the deductions, to let them flow freely in order to pretend the rest didn't exist.

But John was different. He valued sincerity, especially from Sherlock.

So he stayed on his knees, and clenched and unclenched his fists in a steady, soothing repetition.

“John.”

John turned. His own fists were clenched—he was still angry, but too afraid to leave, terrified Sherlock would once again be gone if he actually left his side.

“Yes?” John prompted.

Sherlock shut his eyes. The words used to be so easy.

“I'm sorry.” Good start. Only he'd said that, several times, and John's reaction to it now was the same as it was before. Jaw clenched, shoulders squaring, a sharp huff of breath through his nose as his eyes narrowed.

“I know,” John managed through gritted teeth.

Sherlock nodded. He took a breath, another. Opened his eyes, and his mouth, and told himself to do something he hadn't done in a very, very long time.

Don't think. Just speak.

“I didn't... no, I did, I knew, but I convinced myself that you'd know I hadn't really done it. I was so sure I'd come back and you'd be waiting for me, and you'd smile and say you knew all along, and the worst you'd do is scold me for taking so long. I didn't realise you felt that strongly about me. I was...” Sherlock swallowed hard, shook his head sharply. Don't think. “I was excited and I didn't really consider how you would react when I came back to you. I'm sorry.”

The more Sherlock spoke, the stranger John's reaction. His jaw went slack. His hands hung limp at his sides. For once, Sherlock couldn't quite tell what it was John was feeling, and it threw him so off balance that when John crossed to him in three strides and sank to his knees, Sherlock flinched back in preparation for a punch.

John's hands did come up, but it was only to cup Sherlock's face. His thumbs brushed over Sherlock's cheekbones and he grinned, sudden and bright and  _ brilliant. _

“Hello,” he murmured.

Sherlock blinked. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop... being unpredictable!”

John grinned wider. Sherlock squinted at him, picked out joy in the deep crinkles around his eyes and relief in the sag of his shoulder—but the reason eluded him.

“I was just saying hello,” John said, “I don't think we've ever spoken directly before.”

Oh,  _ obvious.  _ Sherlock only ever expressed his real self to John in indirect ways. Never so bluntly, despite it being in his true nature.

“Hello,” Sherlock murmured back, just to watch John's eyes shine. “I'd... forgotten how.”

“It's okay.” John's thumbs continued to rub over Sherlock's cheekbones. “You're here now. And I forgive you, you complete git. But if you ever do anything like that again, I won't. I won't be able to.”

Sherlock nodded. There was a tightness in his throat, so he tried to swallow around it, force it down into his chest.

“I don't... I don't know how long I can keep doing this,” Sherlock said, waving one hand at his own face. “Talking like this. I haven't done it since I was a child. I might slip soon.”

John nodded. “It's okay,” he repeated softly.

Sherlock scowled. “No, it's... I want to say something. In case I lose it. I love you.”

John's eyes widened. His thumbs froze and his grip tightened, fingertips digging into Sherlock's skin.

“I... you, too,” John stammered. “I mean, I love you, too. Git.”

Sherlock chuckled. “You said that already.”

“Well.” John's mouth moved silently for a moment before he let out a helpless laugh and pitched forward, pressing their foreheads together. “You're still as much of a git as you were a minute ago. It bears repeating.”

The rapid footsteps of approaching police broke them apart, but not for long. John took his hand as they made their way out to the street.

Sherlock loved, and he kissed John on the mouth, and it didn't matter if he loved wrong or not because John kissed him back.

~

END

 


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